Thursday, 31 December 2015

Tomorrow, I'll be posting about where we will be sketching in 2016, but today we'll look back at where we sketched in 2015.......

Below you can see a record of the "Let's Draw..." events in 2015 - plus photos of people who participated and sketches.

January 2015

In January, we got organised and drew up a schedule of places for every month in 2015 - starting in February. This helped enormously with making things happen. As a result - numbers attending the skethcrawls increased significantly over the year, both in terms of overall numbers and regular attenders.

7th February 2015: British Museum

London Urban Sketchers draw the British Museum in February 2015
sitting on the steps in the great Court

A large group came to the British Museum day which proved to be a very good place to go on a winter's day - although rather busy on a Saturday with lots of other people looking for things to see and do indoors!

Monday, 14 December 2015

A Few weeks ago I was lucky to be
invited to join a group of artists to sketch from the comfort of an office on
the 32nd floor in Moorgate. It was amazing experience to gradually see London
light up as the sky darkened. The views were incredible. The iconic
curved dome of St Paul's Cathedral caught my eye, standing out in contrast to the numerous

gridded lines
surrounding it. There was so much going on that I thought the only way I could
capture this was through mark making, layering and pattern. The second drawing is the
view of Finsbury Square, which you can get a brief glimpse of in the bottom
corner with the Gherkin peeking through in the background. I tried to capture
the density of the scene. It was great to see everyone’s impression of a
challenging view. Thanks to James and Carlos for arranging such a great afternoon.

For those wanting to sketch the Christmas Tree and the lights at the entrance to the Strand I recommend experimenting with some dark paper with you and media which works on top of dark paper! Otherwise you just end up filling in a lot of darks!

In case it's wet or for those of us who don't do to well in cold/damp weather (I shall be indoors!), the National Gallery offers lots of opportunities for keeping warm and dry and drawing people and paintings in art galleries. The trick with drawing people fast is to focus on the shape, size and posture and not the faces. There's also any amount of architecture and perspective in the very large interiors to keep the 'drawing buildings' fans happy!

The National gallery has sketching stools - but they're sometimes difficult to locate

PLEASE NOTE: The National Gallery does not allow wet media for sketching. You need to use pencils or coloured pencils. Pens that don't use wet ink seem to be OK i.e. no dip pens and no fountain pens.

Refreshments: Sandwiches - In the National Gallery (Grab and Go next to the National Cafe and Expresso Bar in the Basement), M&S @ Charing Cross, Boots at the Trafalgar end of The Strand, various coffee places around Trafalgar Square

In early December the Christmas Tree from Norway is erected in Trafalgar Square. Last year it was lit on 4th December.Plus the National Gallery offers lots of opportunities for keeping warm and dry and drawing people in art galleries.

The aim of starting later is to have time to sketch the tree in lights as dusk begins

Sunday, 6 December 2015

I often walk past this spot outside Liverpool Street station and think to myself, "There's Tom Cruise's house..." Of course, it isn't really, but it was used as the location for the team's secret "safe house" in the 1996 film "Mission Impossible". I find it a clever choice, because it's an unusual building but quite iconic, situated directly above a tube entrance, jutting out into two streets, and that classic Victorian railway architecture. So the other day I decided to stop and draw it.
It must be 20 years since they filmed Tom here, but it hasn't changed at all. Below is a composite from the film, for comparison.

The latest Mission Impossible movie that came out this year saw Tom Cruise and co. in Kings Cross Station, so perhaps he's working his way around the Monopoly board.

About Urban Sketchers London

Urban Sketchers is a network of artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel to. Our mission is to "Show the World, One Drawing at a Time." Visit the main Urban Sketchers blog for more information.